Discrimination complaint filed with U.S. Department of Education against Wissahickon School District

LOWER GWYNEDD — A complaint has been filed with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights against the Wissahickon School District for alleged discrimination against the Hispanic community in Ambler.

The complaint states that the district discriminated “against Hispanic students on the basis of race by proposing the closure of Mattison Avenue Elementary School, which will have a disparate impact on Hispanic students” and “discriminates against Hispanic parents on the basis of national origin by failing to provide effective methods of communication to Hispanic parents at the school who are limited in English proficiency.”

The name of the person who filed the complaint was not released to the public because, according to the DOE, it “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.”

According to the complaint, during the public hearings regarding the proposed closure of Mattison Avenue in October, the district did not provide any information that had been translated into Spanish.

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“The school community takes it upon themselves to translate, so anything from the school is in Spanish but no communication via email, U.S. mail, schoolbag or phone is translated,” it states.

The complaint goes on to show similar circumstances where the district allegedly failed to provide translated information to the community. It cited Hurricane Sandy last fall, where Spanish-speaking children apparently stayed home from school because their homes were without power. Apparently, any communication with the district was through electronic “robo calls” that could not be heard by those without power. The children apparently were not told they would be bused to a neighboring school that had power and therefore missed the bus.

The complaint also states the closure of Mattison Avenue negatively impacts the Latino community because most in the community do not own vehicles. While Mattison Avenue is a walkable school, the alternative school is allegedly “inaccessible via public transportation and walking is prohibitive” because there are no sidewalks and the roads leading to the school are dangerous.

It further states the closure of Mattison Avenue will allegedly lead to the end the Head Start program in Ambler, leaving a lasting negative impact on the community that relies on the program to help Spanish-speaking children learn English at a young age.

“These people have no voice,” it says.

District Solicitor Scott Wolpert read an official statement released by the district during the Jan. 28 school board meeting, saying the complaint was filed six weeks after the Mattison Avenue hearings.

“The complaint curiously makes no mention that the district provided interpreter services during the hearing process, nor that the district translated into Spanish various notice and content based documents during the school closure hearing process,” Wolpert said.

He said the district has retained council to fight the allegations and said the complaint does not have any merit whatsoever. He said the district continues to treat every person fairly and equally.

The full statement has been posted on the district’s website, www.wsdweb.org

Mattison Avenue parent Christine Delaurentis said during the meeting in reply to the district’s official statement that Wolpert was “not forthcoming with the information” he was providing.

“The Hispanic community in Ambler had no knowledge about the possible closure of Mattison, until a bilingual parent met with them on the playground after school in September,” she said.

She said the community repeatedly made requests for documents to be translated into Spanish before the district agreed to translate them. She said the only reason a translator was at the first hearing in October was because of repeated requests.

“And in fact, the translator was told to only translate for parents who wanted to speak to the board,” she said. “They were not allowed to translate the rest of the hearing for those parents.”

She said bilingual parents who offered to translate were told they were not allowed to translate because the district translator was already there.

“Those poor parents sat there for that entire two-hour hearing and had no idea what was going on, because they were not allowed to know” she said. “Don’t lie to the people of this district.”